Altoona tree lighting

I'm so mad at myself for blowing these photos from a tree lighting ceremony Dec. 10 in Altoona. It was so dark I couldn't get my camera to focus and, when it did, the flash blasted them.

Ugh.

Oh well. We all had a great time and Jasper loved giving Santa hugs and visiting with him. We also got to go for a horse-drawn carriage ride. J liked it but was more interested in the bags hanging from the backside of the horses. "What those for?" he asked. We tactfully explained what they were for but he didn't quite get it until one of the horses actually used his bag and we caught a wiff. (Ewww!)

Merry Christmas!

Hide-N-Seek

Jasper has found a new fun spot to hide - in his closet. Adam took a picture of him while he was attempting to hide, even though, we would say "Jasper, where are you?" and everytime he answered, "I'm hiding in my closet!"

Bed Head!

Jasper woke up with some crazy bed-head and we had to take a picture! I called him Spike the rest of that day!

We're Building Bears...and Owls...

One of Grandma Vicki's Christmas gifts to Jasper and Noah was a trip to the Build-A-Bear Workshop at Jordan Creek Mall. Jasper decided he wanted to build a bear, which he called Teddy. Noah chose an owl, which he called Turner, named after the fact that the owl's head turns around - very clever! Noah had done this before, so he showed Jasper the ropes. They picked their animal of choice, watched as the Build-A-Bear crew stuffed them until just the right "fluffines," took a red heart, kissed it, rubbed it in their hands, and made a wish and placed it in their newly adopted animal, washed it off, then made a birth certificate. And the trip was complete with Jasper picking out a firefighter costume and Noah, a Woody costume.

We had a fun time and Teddy and Turner are sure to be great pals!

*This was a trip with cousin Noah on Saturday afternoon. Friday night/Saturday morning Cousin Sydney spent the night with us and we went to Breakfast with Santa - those pictures will be posted soon - it was a great cousin's weekend! Jasper was saying 'I love my cousins' by the time the weekend was over.

Putting up the Christmas Tree!

We headed off to Menards on a cold Tuesday night to pick out our Christmas Tree! Hopefully one day, we'll make the trek out to an actual Christmas Tree Farm like Adam and I have done once or twice when we were first married, but for now, Menards gave us just as fun of an experience! Jasper was very involved in picking out the tree telling us 'whoa that's a big one' or pushing the cart near us so we could load up the tree.

After we got home, Daddy cut off a portion of the stump and got it all ready for the decorating to begin. We put on the lights, decorations, and completed it with a star on top.

Another special decoration to us this year is a ceramic Santa, painted by Great Grandma Bev. It plays "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and Jasper likes to twist it up so the music plays.

The bottom picture is the "pre-decorated tree" where Jasper was holding up his star decoration that he made at the Festival of Trees.

2010 Festival of Trees

Jman, Grandma Vicki, and I headed to the 2010 Festival of Trees. It is put on every year at the Polk County Convention Complex in Des Moines and proceeds benefit Blank Children's Hospital. Unfortunately, my camera batteries were low, so I only got one photo. But this is a photo of Jman and Grandma Vicki in front of the M&M Tree. We enjoyed looking at the beautiful trees and had a nice visit with Santa where Jasper asked for a vacuum and tractor (both in green if possible). We got stuff to make a marshmallow snowman (the booth was out of frosting) and were planning on riding the train, until the train broke down as soon as we were headed in it's direction. Despite these bumps in the road, we still had a great time!

Bittersweet Thanksgiving

This year's Thanksgiving was a little bittersweet. It was the first Thanksgiving without Jasper's Great Grandpa Bob and his Great Grandma Bev. We missed them both, but were thankful for the time we were able to spend with both the Wilsons and Trissel side. Here are a couple photos of Jman, Dom, and Perri reading with Uncle Tim on the Trissel side and Syd and Grandma Debbie and Jman and his cousin, Joey, playing, at Phyllis' house on the Wilson side.

Potty chart

Potty training is going very well with Jasper. He goes a couple of times every day at day care and a couple of times at night when we're home.

Here he holds up his potty chart after going for the first time at Alissa's. He gets a sticker each time he goes when he's there, but we've upped the ante and he gets M&Ms at home.

Sleepy boy

Natalie checked on Jasper tonight around 10:15 pm and found him like this. He was wreaked, though, so he didn't even flinch when I dug his arm out from under him.

Happy haircut

Jasper's taken a liking lately with pretending to cut hair. Last night he and I did it for close to an hour so he had to show off his skills for his mommy tonight.

He takes it pretty seriously, tossing his Bubba over our shoulders like a cape and telling me to sit still when I was squirming around. He uses one of Nat's combs to brush our hair and his plastic needle nose pliers as scissors.

"Lookin' good," he said once he was done with me.

"You look beautiful," he told Nat.

What a sweet boy.

It's Potty-Training Time

Our potty-training has officially begun! Jasper has been going on the potty off and on for about 2-3 months. We never really pushed it, but about a week ago we decided we were really going to make an effort to put him on the potty alot more often. We started it last Wednesday (Nov. 18, 2010) and by Friday, he was wearing his pull-up at daycare. Friday was also the day they went and bought a new potty for Jman to have at daycare. He's been doing really good! Of course, he's had a couple accidents and will continue to have those, but the only time he wears a diaper is at night and during nap time, so I think we're on the right path - yay!

And he's also re-newed his love of our M&M potty jar, that he was kind of interested in a couple months back. He gets 2 M&Ms after each trip to the potty and he never misses that step in the process!

Here is a picture with him and his potty-chart from daycare. He gets to fill it up with stickers during the week and then brings it home at the end of each week to proudly display what he's done. This is from Week 1!

Yay - diapers will soon be a distant memory for Jasper P!

Dinner with the Parrinos

Autumn and Dom ventured over to the East side last week for dinner at our place. We had a fun time! Dom and Jman played together, but Dom's most favorite activity was definitely throwing Jasper's Hulk ball around...and Adam and him got in quite a bit of wrestling, too! Thanks for coming over guys! Oh, and Jasper is in the potty-training mode so we find it's easier to keep his pants off at night so he won't have to bother with them when he goes on the potty! (so that's our explanation for any recent photos with him and no pants!)

Two Dogs

Grandma Vicki's dog, Sadie, came to stay with us for a few days while Grandma Bev was at the Kavanagh House. Sadie (7 lbs) and Coz (70 lbs.) got along really well, despite them being so different. This was one of the places we usually found them before we all settled in for the night.

Jasper has a Curious George book that talks about Curious George going to a dog show and taking dogs home with him. The book is about counting and so Curious George puts 3 small dogs in one room, 3 big dogs in another room, 3 hairy dogs in one room, etc. Going off this counting theme, Jasper kept saying 'we have 2 dogs at our house...and then he would count them 1, 2."

He had a good time with Sadie and quickly realized that he could actually pick Sadie up and carry her around...poor Sadie. I think she was glad to go home.

Thank you Erin & Jesse!

A big thanks to cousins Erin and Jesse for sending us some new Broncos gear - we love it! Thanks so much for thinking of us! The picture where Jasper's arm is out is supposed to be him blowing a kiss to both of you! And that smile is an actual smile, we are trying to teach Jasper between a "grin" and "smiling so much it looks like he's in pain"....we're working on it :)

Thanks again, you guys! Love you!

I'm BATMAN

Thanks to a hand-me-down costume from Gabe & Zach Kline, Jasper went as BATMAN this year for Halloween. We had many chances to enjoy his costume. He went to Altoona Safe Trick or Treat night and Pleasant Hill Business Trick or Treat. On Halloween night, he handed out candy at Grandma Vick's house while Adam and I were in Iowa City for the Hawkeye game, and lastly, he wore his costume at Issa's Daycare for his pajama day/halloween costume party that next Monday.

His joke this year was "What is a mummy's favorite type of music?" Answer: "RAP" He did pretty well telling his joke, although he usually got the answer out before anybody had time to guess.

Grandma Vicki said that he stood at her front door the whole time holding the big bowl of candy and waiting anxiously for each kid to come to the door. And he was a little bummed when some of the older kids walked by and didn't stop. He did ok with most of the other costumes but did hand the candy bowl to Grandma Vicki when some of the scarier costumes came to the door.

This year, another one of his favorite Halloween "celebrations" was listening to his Halloween CD in the car. He loved monster mash and purple people eater - usually singing the songs on his own everywhere he went.

Oh, and one of the pictures in this post is of Jman hugging Norma Teuber at The Altoona Historical Society. Norma is a great gal that I used to work with at the Chamber and just loves when Jman comes around!

It was a fun halloween!

It's Pumpkin Carving Time

Jasper, daddy, and I took time to do our annual pumpkin-carving festivities! As usual, daddy took the longest to carve his pumpkin, but it did look pretty good! Jman and I decided to carve a simple pumpkin face and spent more time pulling the gooey seeds and guts out of the pumpkins. This year, we got artificial lights to put in the pumpkins. It was Jasper's job each night after work to turn them on and then turned them off before going to bed. We had a great time and it was fun to put them on the front step and enjoy them lit up each night, counting down the days until Halloween.

Special Post for a Wonderful Grandmother

My grandma Trissel passed away peacefully in the early morning hours on Saturday, November 6, 2010. She was surrounded by her family that loved her so much! She had a short battle with pancreatic cancer and died in the compassionate hands of the hospice staff at the Kavanagh House.

Thinking of my grandma, I'm reminded of her calming demeanor - she had this peaceful presence about her and I always felt so loved when I was with her. She was the grandma that always had the cookies ready for you when you got there and wanted to make sure your belly was full of those treats that you didn't always get at home.

I remember having garage sales at their house on Christopher St. and they would go up and get a dozen Casey's donuts in the morning, so we could get some energy before us kids would play in the backyard while the parents had a busy day of sales ahead :)

Who could forget the organ that they had in their basement! Whenever we went over there for family gatherings, holidays, etc. us kids would take turns blaring out tunes on the organ, playing ping-pong, and eyeing my grandpa's funny mask that he had up on a shelf, and would occasionally put on to get a laugh from us kids.

Growing up they were active grandparents that would be cheering me on at my various sporting events, especially soccer games. And coming to watch me at my dance recitals, which looking back now, those things were SO long, so they deserved much more than just a "thank you" from me for sitting through all of those!

And probably some of my favorite memories of growing up - CAMPING with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Blackhawk State Park was the place to be almost every summer where we'd spend time camping with each other. Once again, I remember us kids gravitating toward my grandparent's camper to play games, get candy, and just be kids away from our parents!

Within the last couple of years, my grandma holds a special place in my memory for making Jasper, when he was born, a beautiful afghan in our favorite colors - bronco blue, orange, and white. At family birthday parties, she would always catch up on what fun things Jasper had been up to, and if she could catch him, she would hug him and you could just see the joy in her face that both her grandkids and great-grandkids brought her.

The picture in this post is definitely one of my favorites from my cousin Autumn's wedding, where her and my grandpa were recognized for being the longest married couple at the wedding - 59 years!

We will miss you so much, Grandma! I'm thankful for all the memories that we've had, I'm blessed to have had such great role-models in you and Grandpa to show what true love is really all about (even though we teased you when you two would wear matching sweatshirts!:)). You will always have a special place in my heart and I will remember your warm presence and the feeling I always got, that around you, no matter how old I was, I was still a kid having a great time with grandparents that supported and loved me unconditionally.

Iowa football tailgate group

Our friends Jared and Heidi Gillespie invited us to the Iowa football game Oct. 30 against Michigan State (Jasper stayed with Grandma Vicki to hand out candy for Halloween.) The Hawkeyes dominated the previously unbeaten Spartans and won easily, 37-6.

The game included one of the best plays I've ever seen in person - Tyler Sash's interception, which he immediately pitched to Micah Hyde, who ran it back nearly 70 yards for a touchdown. It was as excited of a crowd as I've ever been a part of.

I couldn't get the video to post on this blog, but in case you want to watch the play here's the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu2JdtmqCzk

We tailgated before (and after) the game with other friends including Matt Hemphill, his girlfriend Amy, and his parents Ray and Donna.

What a great time!

Cool photos (in my opinion)

On a photo shoot for work the other day I went to an Altoona farm where Percheron horses are raised. Here is a small selection of the photos I took, which I thought I'd share because I enjoyed them so much.

Snapshot

Just a quick shot of Jasper and his cousin Perri Smith playing together a few weeks back.

Great-grand children

After Alex and Char Lonsdale's wedding today we gathered the kiddos up for a big group photo. We're missing a couple of Doris Diddy's great-grandchildren, but here goes:

Elijah, Hunter, Michelle, Jasper, Lauren, Tysa, Marley, Beth, Amanda, Alivia, Annabelle, Sydney, Hailey, Jackson, Dylan.

Funny group ... good photo!

Playing in the leaves

We had a great time yesterday raking up the leaves and playing in them while the weather was still nice.

After a long, wet summer we've had a great October. Less than an inch of rain has fallen so far, and it's been beautiful fall weather almost every day - 70-80 degrees most days.